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Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Homemade Soya Bean Milk

I've always thought making homemade soya bean milk is a difficult process and that you must own a soya bean milk maker machine to do the job. How wrong was I! If you have a food processor and a muslin/cheese cloth, you're good to go. It's really not difficult at all, just a little tedious and messy. That's what's great about blogging. I learn new things all the time. Though making homemade soya bean milk is nothing new to most Asian homecooks to shout about, it is a big deal for a noob cook like me. I can now proudly say I make my own soya bean milk from scratch! Haha!

To make soya bean milk, first you need to soak the beans overnight. The beans will swell to double its size. Rinse and drain and then place in the food processor. Add water just enough to cover the beans and blend. Squeeze and strain out using a muslin/cheese cloth. Put the strained pulp back in the food processor, add water to cover and blend again. This is to extract as much milk from the beans as possible. Strain soya bean milk into a pot, slowly bring to the boil while stirring regularly. Skim off any foam. Let it gently simmer for 10 minutes. That's it! Homemade soya bean milk. Thick and creamy and nothing like what you get from outside. You can add as much or as little sugar to your liking and even flavour the milk with pandan leaves. If you prefer a less thick soya milk, just thin it down with more water. Drink it warm or cold as you like. How great is that huh?

One thing to note. While cooling the soya bean milk, it will form a layer of 'beancurd sheet' on top. Do not try to stir it in the milk like what I did. You'll end up with clumpy milk. Just gently scrape it away. Discard the beancurd sheet or you can dry it and save for another use, but I've not tried that. You also need to strain the soya bean milk to get rid of any bits of beancurd sheet that might be left. For the smoothest texture, strain and strain again if you must. Store the soya bean milk in the refrigerator if you can't finish within the day its made. I've kept it for a couple of days and it was still okay.

Go here for the recipe and detailed step by step method. I used 250g soya beans and that yielded somewhere between 1 1/2 to 2 litres of soya bean milk.